Böcker av Graeme Schultz

It would be very strange to see a butterfly living its life like a caterpillar, never trusting its wings to carry it and never embracing its new identity. It would be a denial of all that defines its existence. It occurred to me some time ago that I had spent a significant part of my life making statements about faith, but not actually living my life as if they were true. That's why I gave this book the title 'As If' - because I wondered how different my life would look if I lived as if everything I claimed to believe about God, was actually true. Was I a butterfly who was living like a caterpillar? So I decided to wipe the slate clean and rewrote my faith statement. I decided that no Christian cliché or well-used Christian catch phrase would pass my lips unless I really believed it and was ready to live as if it was true and stake my life on it. The biggest 'As If' of all has been that I have decided to live as if I am the focus of the greatest love in the universe - that I am the object of God's unsearchable and extravagant love. I have found that the greatest battle I wage is against myself as I try to be true to the life of Christ that lives in me. So that's what I've decided to do, to look Jesus in the eye and live my life as if His love for me is enough to carry me through everything. It's simple really. So simple that anyone can do it, and I don't know how I could have missed it for so long.

Hardwired to Christ is a daily devo­tional book which focuses on the union that exists between us and Christ; 365 questions about the most stunning spectacle in history - the cross of Jesus. The author attempts to demystify the greatest mystery of all; 'We have been joined to Christ' - and in doing so challenges many of the pre-conceived ideas which have come to define Christianity. These old paradigms may be simply the established rhetoric of the culture of Christianity, or perhaps notions of God that have grown out of our need for security and identity - yet often we accept them without much thought, and find ourselves living out a form of Christianity which is incomplete and unsatisfying. The author himself went through a challenging time of re-thinking the Christian faith when the oft repeated party lines where inadequate for the real life issues he was facing - in the process he gained an insight into Jesus Christ, his life and death, and their relevance today. It was a realization of the extrava­gance of the work of Christ on the cross, and the relative dim glow gene­rated by the things of this world. We are hardwired to Christ - the cross has done its work.

The true gospel message has little to say about what we do, and much to say about what Christ did, and who we are as a result. This gospel is not found in the busy activities of religion, it is more akin to a pilgrimage to the cross, you just go there and ask God to show you what it was all about. And then you go back, time and time again, all by yourself, and gradually the magnitude of it begins to dawn on you, and you stand amazed by it.